Trim
by Momosportif
Summary: Young Team Tiedoll fic. Kanda is not too fond of receiving haircuts but he has a proposition for his gensui that might make the cut. Oneshot silliness. Characters belong to Hoshino, as always. Please enjoy! :D


Trim

"You are hurting me, you are hurting me, you are hurting me, you are hurting me," the chant kept time with his swinging feet.

"Kanda," Tiedoll stepped around in front of him, "I haven't started yet." Kanda continued his singsong protests resolutely, turning away from the general as if he had neither seen nor heard him. Tiedoll put his hands on his hips, placing a pair of sewing scissors down on the nearby cabinet with a cracked and lilliputian mirror upon it, propped against the wall. It was always the same struggle, the same clash of wills.

"Bwak, bwakbwakbwakbaaawk!" Daisya stood in the doorway, hunching over and thrusting his bent arms back and forth in a ridiculous imitation of a chicken. Tiedoll looked up at him severely from over his glasses.

"Poultry belongs in three places, Daisya: outdoors, the kitchen, and inside people's digestive systems. I advise we not imitate that which we do not desire to be." Daisya bowed his head and crossed his arms behind his back, poorly containing his glee at Kanda's positively irate backwards glance. Tiedoll cleared his throat sternly and tilted his head even lower than before, a second warning. Daisya, being not entirely void of thinking capabilities, scampered out of the room with a final hushed yet audible cluck. Tiedoll sighed and scratched the back of his head.

"Che!" Kanda glowered after his retreating comrade, temporarily forgetting his disheartening objections.

An unsteady silence stretched throughout the tiny dorm room.

Marie ran from outside the door to the side of Tiedoll's bed, flattening himself and sliding underneath.

Tiedoll sighed once more.

"Kanda, I _will_ cut your hair."

"You are hurting me, you are hurting me-"

"Daisya came out fine, Kanda."

"You are hurting me, you are hurting me-"

"And I've never _once_ cut Marie when I give him a shave."

"LALALALALALALALALA-"

"LALALALALALALA!"

Kanda hesitated.

Marie peeked from beneath the bed.

Daisya leaned back in the chair at Tiedoll's writing desk. Now it got interesting. Despite his seniority, the general didn't always win these struggles and one was always sure to glimpse an impressive display of persuasive tactics and staunch immobility.

"I'm thirsty."

"Hello, Thirsty." Ooh. Point for the old man.

"My name is Kanda, I need a drink." Tiedoll slipped a hand into his pocket and produced a water canteen. Kanda was stuck. He accepted the offered beverage and took a tight lipped sip.

Marie flipped the sheet over his head.

"I need to use the bathroom."

"You're clean enough." Harsh.

"May I please use the _rest_room?"

"You went," Tiedoll regarded his wrist, "ten minutes ago. While I was cutting Daisya's hair. You need to go again?"

Embarrassment for liberation?

"No…" Pride always won with Kanda.

Daisya let the chair legs touch ground again and resumed his renovative work in one of Tiedoll's many sketchbooks. Tiedoll would end this quickly.

Marie pulled the sheet down over his head, framing his face, a defensive position in case the deathblow was going to be severe.

"Then we better get started," Tiedoll picked up the scissors. Kanda's eyes widened.

"I think we better not…" he cautiously scooted towards the back of his stool. Tiedoll made a well measured advance from the left. Kanda adjusted his angle of retreat. And a bold move in on the right. And a counter. And an unexpected sidestep to come in from the back!

Marie let the sheet fall in front of his face once more and Daisya snickered as he chanced a backwards glance through the doorframe into the tiny studio.

"IIEE!!" Kanda thrashed in an attempt to free his ponytail from the grasp of evil. "You can't! It's not fair!!"

"What's unfair about this, Kanda?" Tiedoll leaned over, tilting the petite head of shiny black at his mercy upward so they were facing each other.

"You _always _cut everyone's hair."

"You're too young to cut your own-"

"But we never get to cut yours! You don't have suffering like we have!" Marie and Daisya were both staring with rapt attention now. The spat had taken a wholly unpredicted turn. Tiedoll fell into a thoughtful silence in the face of his scowling student.

"Fair enough," the general shrugged and released his hold on Kanda's ponytail, setting the scissors down on the cabinet. "Daisya, Marie! Come in here for a bit, please." Small bare feet pattered across the stone floor. "Kanda, feeling slighted because I'm going to cut his hair, is proposing that you all return the favor and cut my hair for me. Do you two want to help him?"

Daisya replied instantly,"Yeah!" because it provided a chance to handle usually prohibited sharp objects and Marie, after a moment of consideration, nodded, not wanting to feel left out nor to put Tiedoll's haircut in the hands of the reckless Daisya and vengeful Kanda.

"Alright. Let's work in the bedroom," Tiedoll ushered the trio onward, lingering to procure three smaller scissors from an overflowing mound of craft supplies sitting in a wooden drawer. He set the scissors on his writing desk, idly noticing Daisya's handiwork in the still open notebook, and pulled the chair away from the desk and into the middle of the room. "Could someone get a sheet out of the closet?" Kanda slipped out of their waiting line to obtain said sheet. "Lay it out here, please," Tiedoll gestured at the floor and Marie assisted Kanda with the spreading of the sizable cloth. "Here we go… Daisya, don't touch the scissors yet, please," Tiedoll placed the chair in the center of the sheet before turning to the curious Daisya and removing his temptation. He stood on the edge of the sheet's hem, assessing the assembly of anticipatory children opposite him, the chair empty between them.

Tiedoll really didn't labor over his appearance but there was a difference between looking poorly put together and looking as though the Kraken had just regurgitated you. _At least hair grows back…_ He swallowed once and proceeded to take his seat, beckoning to his disciples as he did so. Kanda led the way towards their customer (or perhaps victim) and his companions followed, wide-eyed. "Left," Tiedoll held out scissors to Daisya, "right," to Kanda, "and back," and, with a knowing and trusting look, to Marie. The trio took their positions obediently.

"Now," Tiedoll glanced to his side at Kanda, eyes closed and tiny hand on hip, with one finger raised in a reprimanding gesture, "be careful not to wiggle excessively or you'll get chopped."

"Oh," Tiedoll turned his gaze to the new voice at his other side, "and don't sneeze or cough or hiccup or dance unless first giving notice." Tiedoll grinned beneath his moustache at his own rephrased safety reminders and laughed as he consented,

"Alright, alright." Kanda gave him a serious look before glancing across to Daisya and exchanging decisive nods.

"Just a little bit off the ends," Kanda instructed as he placed his thumb and first two fingers into the holes at the back of his scissors and reached a hand up to stroke Tiedoll's scraggly gray hair flat. Daisya opened his mouth slightly and glared intently at his work area, making the cautious first cut at the very, very tips of a lock of hair held between two fingers, as he'd seen the general do earlier that day during his own haircut. A chubby dark fist appeared in Tiedoll's peripheral vision, waving a hair tie which Tiedoll slowly removed from its grasp.

He shut his eyes and listened to the little snips that accompanied apprehensive tugs, letting his mind go blank, preferring to enjoy an otherworldly moment of silence rather than fretting about a potential hairstyle disaster. Perhaps this was exactly what all of them needed, a reversal of roles. Heck, they were being quiet, that _must _be nurturing. They were even being artistic in a certain sense and that was always an admirable achievement, to drag Kanda out of his constant sulking state, to pry Marie from his comfortable isolation, and to focus Daisya's energy into a somewhat safe and productive application.

"All done, I think!" Kanda stepped back from the chair to study his handiwork.

"How's it look?" Tiedoll smiled gently at him, remaining still as Daisya continued his snipping and Marie brushed the cut hairs off Tiedoll's back.

"It's even!" Kanda announced proudly. "I'll get the mirror." He strutted into the clustered studio and returned shortly with the chipped glass. Marie stepped around the chair to stand beside Kanda and an anxious silence blanketed the room as everyone waited for Daisya to complete his side.

"Eureka!" the assembly jumped at Daisya's sudden outburst.

"Eureka?" Tiedoll rose his eyebrow at the misused expression, hoping it had been indeed misused. Daisya stepped back, grinning.

"I have finished!" He brought two fingers to his lips and kissed them as he flourished his hand. The moment of truth had come.

"Ready?" Kanda made to raise the mirror. Tiedoll studied the expressions of his disciples, looking for a hint of how their work had resulted. Two proud and one somber as ever. Not much to go on. He nodded to Kanda and he lifted the mirror to Tiedoll's general eye level.

Tiedoll blinked once.

Twice.

He put a hand to his mouth. He was clearly attempting to remain composed.

"Is it…" Daisya looked uncomfortably up at Marie as Tiedoll bowed his head.

"Gensui, what…" Kanda lowered the mirror, perplexedly gazing at the general. Tiedoll began to shake, then to tremble, then he burst out laughing, giving up on concealing his amusement. The trio exchanged uneasy looks, wondering what about the fruits of their labors merited such a response. Marie leaned to the left, Daisya's side, and then to the right, Kanda's side, and then understood. He rushed forward to Kanda's side, raising his scissors, but Tiedoll waved him away, forcing between laughs,

"No, no, Marie… Leave it like this."

"Like what?" Daisya looked bemusedly at Tiedoll and his reflection. Kanda was beginning to get vexed however so Tiedoll quickly suppressed his hearty laughter and wiped away happy tears from beneath his glasses saying,

"My, my…I look like that pine tree you drew on my beachscape, Daisya, like I grew on a slant." Daisya flushed slightly with embarrassment at being discovered so quickly as Kanda took a peek at Daisya's side and his own. He cut a very nasty look Daisya's way after seeing for himself the gap in length between the two sides.

"Baka! I said a few inches off the-"

"Kanda, easy now. I'm perfectly fine with it, I'll just pull it all back. See?" Tiedoll smiled jokingly as he gathered his uneven hair into it's normal ponytail and turned his head to show off the look.

Marie smiled back first, chuckling softly at the bizarre tuft the general had formed. Then Daisya joined in, giggling roguishly. Finally Kanda's anger evaporated into a perfect half moon smile and his rarely heard tinkling laughter. Tiedoll's baritone mirth joined the chorus as he released his hair and stood up. "And that's why, Kanda," he reached down and grasped Kanda's small wrist, "haircutting is a one person job."

"Oh…" Kanda furtively attempted to free his wrist and looked beseechingly up to his master's kind but resolute face.

"No, I haven't forgotten about your appointment, Kanda, I told you you would get your hair cut today."

"But-"

"And you can't say it's not fair," Marie and Daisya stared after the retreating pair in an unsurprised manner.

"Gensui…" Kanda pleaded as he was sat down upon his stool again.

"Yes?"

"I…" Kanda began swinging his legs again, "I really _do_ need to use the restroom now." Tiedoll sighed. It was always something.

"Alright, go." Kanda lost no time in bounding off his stool and towards the door. "But come right back!" Kanda hesitated, looked back, and slammed the door without any confirmation. Tiedoll shook his head and picked up his larger pair of scissors.

Some things never changed and, he realized as he secured his awkward ponytail, that that was often for the better.


End file.
